The Audi Sport Customer Racing programme will be wound down, the company has confirmed, affecting multiple categories globally including GT and TCR.
Neckarsulm confirmed the move in a letter addressed to current customers from the head of Audi Sport, Chris Reinke, and Rolf Michl, Managing Director of Audi Sport GmbH.
The communication confirmed that Audi Sport Customer Racing will cease sales of vehicles to customers after Q1 2024 – fulfilling all existing orders – and that homologation for its existing models will extend until at least the end of next year.
Meanwhile, onsite support for customers will be maintained as well as spare parts supplies to allow racing to continue into 2024 – however, ‘strategic operations’ in customer racing will not continue next year, when Audi Sport drivers will also no longer be supplied to customer teams.
The news impacts GT2, GT3, GT4 and TCR customers across approximately 600 vehicles around the world.
The confirmation comes after Audi announced its entry into Formula 1 with Sauber in 2026.
The focus on F1 sees ex-McLaren boss Andreas Seidl leading the team, looking to capitalise on regulation changes for the 2026 season, some of which have already been criticised by world champion and last weekend’s British Grand Prix winner, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen.
Audi recently confirmed Swiss racer Neel Jani as its F1 simulator development driver.
On top of its F1 focus, speculation that Audi would end the customer programme was also fuelled by a lack of news on a replacement for the Audi R8 production model, which shares it underpinnings and mechanicals with the Lamborghini Huracan – the Italian brand part of the VW Group and sitting officially within Audi.
The VW Group’s sportscar focus will now be spearhead by the a new Lamborghini hypercar, the SC63, in 2024.
Suggestions that Audi program would switch to an alternative to the R8, such as its the RS 3 sedan that it introduced for customer TCR competition in 2016, have now proven incorrect.
The Audi Sport Customer Racing program began in 2009 with a focus on the Audi R8 LMS and expanding in the GT3 category. The GT4 version of the R8 LMS was available from 2017, with the most recent LMS GT2 on track since 2019.
In addition, Audi’s fifth racing model alongside the three R8 and RS 3 LMS TCR customer offerings – is the electric RS Q e-tron that competes in Rally Raid competition, including the marquee Dakar Rally.
While amassing hundreds of titles for its first and second generation R8 globally, in Australia the Audi R8 GT3 is a three-time Bathurst 12 Hour winner, while the RS 3 TCR has recorded the poles and five Supercheap Auto TCR Australia race wins.
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